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Spectres of antiquity : classical literature and the Gothic, 1740-1830 / James Uden.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Uden, James, author.
- Series:
- Oxford scholarship online.
- Oxford scholarship online
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Gothic fiction (Literary genre), English--History and criticism.
- Gothic fiction (Literary genre), English.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource : illustrations (colour).
- Place of Publication:
- New York, New York : Oxford University Press, [2020]
- Summary:
- Gothic literature imagines the return of ghosts from the past. What about the classical past? 'Spectres of Antiquity' is full-length study describing the relationship between Greek & Roman culture & the Gothic novels, poetry, & drama of the 18th & early-19th century. Rather than simply representing the opposite of classical aesthetics & ideas, the Gothic emerged from an awareness of the lingering power of antiquity, & it irreverently fractures & deconstructs classical images & ideas. The Gothic also reflects a new vision of the ancient world: no longer inspiring modernity through its examples, antiquity has become a ghost, haunting & oppressing contemporary minds rather than guiding them. Through readings of canonical works by authors including Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, & Mary Shelley, the text argues that these authors' ghostly plots & ideas preserve the remembered traces of Greece & Rome.
- Contents:
- Introduction
- Gothic and classical in eighteenth-century criticism : ghosts, knights, and the sublime
- Horace Walpole, Gothic classicism, and the aesthetics of collection
- Ann Radcliffe's classical remembrances
- Queer urges and the act of translation : Matthew Lewis
- Classical idols and the early American Gothic : the skepticism of Charles Brockden Brown
- Embodied Antiquity : Mary Shelley's relationships with the past
- Afterword: Haunting or reception?
- Notes:
- Also issued in print: 2020.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Description based on print version record.
- ISBN:
- 0-19-091029-1
- 0-19-091030-5
- 0-19-091028-3
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